Ballot questions are a pure form of democracy, a way of letting the people speak. But they only work when the public understands them. When the questions are not only confusing but downright deceptive, they pervert rather than fulfill democracy.

And when they confuse in order to undo what the voters had previously said on a prior ballot question, it’s even more galling. That’s what we see now with the Memphis ballot questions this November. And that’s why we agreed to join a lawsuit challenging these questions.

In a 2008 referendum, Memphis voters decisively asked for a two-term limit, and Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), for city elections. IRV lets voters rank their candidates (first, second, third) so that we can avoid costly and low-turnout runoff elections. If no candidate gets a majority on the first round, we use the rankings to determine a majority winner.

IRV makes elections more competitive, and, like term limits, restrains the power of incumbents. So it’s not surprising that incumbent City Council members are determined to kill both election reforms before they can take effect. What is surprising, though, is how deceptively the questions are worded.

The first referendum asks voters if they’d like to impose a three-term limit on elected city officials -- without telling voters they’d already imposed a two-term limit. It makes it sound like a “Yes” vote supports term limits rather than weakens them.

The second referendum proposes to repeal IRV and return to the system in place before 2008 -- without telling voters that this means going back to a second round of expensive runoff elections for single-member council districts.

State law says that the ballot should inform voters of the estimated cost or savings involved in a ballot question. Back in 2008, the city followed that law and duly wrote on the ballot that IRV was expected to save $250,000 a year. This year, rather than saying that repealing IRV would cost $250,000 a year (or anything close to it), the ballot says it’s impossible to estimate. The ballot withholds crucial information required by law.

The third referendum proposes to repeal IRV by doing away with any majority vote requirement, and thus doing away with all runoff elections. (This would also aid incumbents, by design.) But this method of killing IRV in its cradle is inconsistent with the second referendum. You can’t return to runoffs (second referendum) and abolish runoffs (third referendum) at the same time.

This just adds to the voter confusion, making the whole thing a mess.Which may be exactly what the City Council wants.

And the problems don’t end there. The second referendum refers to returning to the pre-2008 system (a second round of runoff elections), “expressly retaining the 1991 federal ruling…for single districts.” What is the 1991 federal ruling? It doesn’t say.

Whatever it is, what does it have to do with runoff elections versus IRV? It doesn’t say. The answer, by the way, is nothing. Both IRV and old-fashioned, expensive, low-turnout runoffs are consistent with the court ruling and not addressed by it at all. Otherwise, we would not have been allowed to have runoffs, and later IRV, on the books for years.

But this language makes it sound like repealing IRV would be more consistent with the 1991 federal ruling than keeping IRV, which is not at all true. Once again, tricky language, and careful omissions, put a thumb on the scale, tricking the voter into a “Yes” vote.

For these reasons, officials should either fix the language or scrap the referendums. Memphians deserve a clean, fair election. They don’t deserve to be tricked by their own elected leaders.

If that doesn’t happen, voters have only one option: vote “NO” on all ballot questions.

Send a message that we want our 2008 vote taken seriously and not dismissed. And send the perhaps even more important message: you can’t fool us, and we don’t like that you tried.

Dr. Racquel Collins is an administrator at the St. Jude’s Graduate School for Biomedical Sciences who recently ran for County Commission as a Democrat.

Sam Goff is a retired financial consultant who recently ran for County Commission as a Republican. Both have joined the lawsuit challenging the ballot questions.

Racquel Collins(Photo: Racquel Collins)

Sam Goff is the Republican candidate Shelby County Commissioner in District 7.(Photo: Courtesy of Sam Goff / For CommercialAppeal.com)